Xbox head Phil Spencer said he supports Raven Software union in internal meeting

Xbox head Phil Spencer reportedly said he would recognize a union at Raven Software once Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard is complete, according to a recording of today’s all-hands company meeting viewed by Kotaku. QA testers at Raven earlier this week voted to unionize, becoming the first organized workers within a AAA gaming studio in North America to do so. 

“Once the deal closes, we would absolutely support [an] employees’ organization that’s in place,” said Spencer. “We think it is a right of employees and something that can be a part of a relationship between a company and people who work at the company.”

Microsoft has previously said it wouldn’t “stand in the way” of unionization efforts at the game studio. “Microsoft respects Activision Blizzard employees’ right to choose whether to be represented by a labor organization and we will honor those decisions,” said the company’s corporate vice president Lisa Tanzi in an interview with the Washington Post in March.

The FTC is currently investigating Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which the agency must approve before the deal is finalized. According to The Information, the FTC probe — which will mainly look into any anti-competitive impacts of the deal — will also focus on how it effects Activision’s current labor force, particularly workers who have lodged discrimination and harassment complaints against the company.

The Santa Monica-based videogame publisher has faced or is in the midst of addressing a number of lawsuits regarding its workplace, including one filed earlier this month by the New York City Employees Retirement System that alleges it devalued pension plans by failing to address allegations of workplace sexual discrimination and harassment. Meanwhile, both the SEC and DOJ are investigating Activision and its CEO for potential insider trading that occurred in advance of the Microsoft deal being made public.

Raven’s QA testers began unionization efforts last year after the company abruptly terminated 12 contractors. This followed long-running claims from Raven testers that they aren’t compensated as well as those in similar roles at Activision, as well as engage in “crunch” — a term for the often brutally long overtime hours many in the video game industry are expected to work in order to ship products on schedule. The company made attempts to disperse the team internally and otherwise frustrate the organizing process, ultimately without success. Overwhelmingly the vote swung in favor of unionization (19 voted for, while only three voted against). Both parties have until May 31st to file any objections; barring that, NLRB will certify the GWA union — after which point Activision will be obligate to begin negotiating a collective bargaining agreement with Raven workers, regardless of the outcome of the Microsoft merger.

Engadget has reached out to Xbox and the Game Workers Alliance for comment on Spencer’s remarks, and will update if we hear back.

議事録を楽々デジタル化、録音データや手書きメモから作成するワザ

会議や打ち合わせなどの記録は、日常的にノートに記録しているだろう。10年ほど前からICレコーダーなどで録音して議事録を作るのに役立てるようなケースも増えてきた。 ただし、ノートを書いたり記録したりする作業が打ち合わせの邪魔になるのはいただけない。特に対面の打ち合わせでキーボードを打っていると、きちんと…

出前館、いまさらゴーストレストランを派手に後追い : 市況かぶ全力２階建

近所の居酒屋の昼営業で飯ってたが、ゴーストキッチンっぷりがすごかった 出前受付用のタブレット端末が9台並んでいて、店名のポストイットが貼ってある 専門店に見せるほど注文が増える、店を増やすほど露出が増える その結果がコレ pic.twitter.com/iRIznA81ah — ところてん (@tokoroten) April 5, 2022 専門店である…

Twitter investors sue Elon Musk over stock manipulation claims

Elon Musk is facing yet another lawsuit over his planned Twitter acquisition. Reutersreports investors have sued the Tesla CEO for allegedly manipulating stock prices ahead of his $44 billion takeover bid. As in an earlier suit, Musk supposedly saved $156 million by failing to disclose that he’d bought more than a 5 percent stake in Twitter by March 14th, violating SEC rules. The investors said Musk only disclosed his investments in early April, when he revealed that he owned a 9.2 percent slice of the social network.

Musk’s post-announcement statements also amounted to manipulation, the investors said. They were particularly concerned about his claim that the deal was “on hold” until Twitter could prove that bots weren’t a major problem and represented less than 5 percent of accounts.

The plaintiffs in the case are hoping for class action status, and ask for unspecified damages if they’re successful. Twitter has declined comment, and Musk hadn’t responded to Reuters‘ requests for comment.

Musk’s hoped-for purchase has already sparked a flurry of legal action. In addition to the previously mentioned lawsuit from April, a Florida pension fund sued Musk for purportedly violating a Delaware law that would bar the merger until 2025. The SEC, meanwhile, is investigating Musk’s disclosure timing. There’s no certainty any of these actions will succeed, but they still pose serious challenges to Musk’s ambitions.

UK watchdog is investigating whether Google restricts competition in ads

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has launched a second investigation into Google’s ad tech practices. This probe, in particular, will look into the role Google plays in the “ad tech stack,” or the set of services that facilitate the sale of online advertising space between advertisers and sellers like online content providers. The organization explained that Google has strong positions at various levels of the ad tech stack and charges fees to both publishers and advertisers. 

It’s examining three key parts of the stack in which Google plays key roles, since it owns the largest providers for each. CMA will examine Google’s practices for demand-side platforms, which give advertisers and media agencies a way to buy a publishers’ space for advertising from many sources. It will also look into the company’s practices relating to ad exchanges that can automate the sale of publishers’ inventory. Finally, the CMA will examine Google’s publisher ad servers that manage a publisher’s inventory to decide which ad to show at a given time based on the bids and direct deals for the space. 

Google’s practices — if indeed questionable — could distort competition, the CMA said. It could contractually tie these various services together, for instance, so users won’t have a choice but to go with Google all the way, making it difficult for smaller rival services to compete. 

According to Andrea Coscelli, the CMA’s Chief Executive:

“Weakening competition in this area could reduce the ad revenues of publishers, who may be forced to compromise the quality of their content to cut costs or put their content behind paywalls. It may also be raising costs for advertisers which are passed on through higher prices for advertised goods and services.”

The organization is also investigating whether Google and Meta colluded over ads. That probe is all about digging into the advertising agreement between the two companies codenamed “Jedi Blue” and figuring out if that deal hinders competition in online advertising. 

Apple is raising the pay of its corporate and retail staff

Apple will start paying its corporate and retail employees more likely in hopes that they won’t leave the company to find better prospects. According to CNBC and The Financial Times, the company will also raise its starting wage for new employees to $22 an hour, up from $20. Further, it will start giving some annual increases in salary starting in July instead of in the autumn. The tech giant didn’t discuss specific details on how it will change its compensation structure, but it told the publications:

“Supporting and retaining the best team members in the world enables us to deliver the best, most innovative, products and services for our customers. This year as part of our annual performance review process, we’re increasing our overall compensation budget.”

A previous Bloomberg report said Apple is paying its sales staff, Genius Bar support personnel and senior hourly workers by as much as 10 percent more, though it’s unclear if this is the same pay hike. Retail employees in various Apple Store locations started planning to form unions earlier this year in their quest for better pay and benefits. Inflation in the US has reached 8.5% in March, forcing people to look for better compensation as the cost of goods in the country reach new heights. 

At the same time, labor shortages caused by the pandemic have bolstered workers’ confidence in challenging their employers and solidified plans to unionize across industries. While the company is raising employee compensation, it has also been accused of union busting by retail workers. A leaked video even showed Deirdre O’Brien, its VP of people and retail, trying to dissuade the company’s employees from joining a union. 

Apple isn’t the only tech giant trying to hold on to its workforce and to prevent them from unionizing by increasing their salaries. Amazon more than doubled its base pay cap for corporate and tech employees, Google revamped its annual review process so that it results in increased salaries and Microsoft promised its people that pay increases are on the way.

NVIDIA reportedly slows down hiring as it braces for a drop in gaming sales

A slowing economy continues to affect the tech industry, as NVIDIA has become one of the first chipmakers to announce a pullback on new hiring, according to memos seen by The New Indian Express and confirmed by Protocol. That lines up its comments during its latest earnings release, when it said that it expects sales of GPUs for gaming consoles and PCs to decline in the current quarter. “Overall the gaming market is slowing,” CEO Jensen Huang told Reuters. 

NVIDIA actually had a solid previous quarter, with revenue up 46 percent over last year to $8.29 billion. It also noted that its “gearing up for the largest wave of new products in our history” with new GPU, CPU, DPU and robotics processors coming online in the second half of the year. 

However, it forecast lower revenue than the market expected for next quarter. And internally, the company appears to be bracing for a slowdown. “Onsite interviews… continue, but we will raise our standard to the highest levels,” it reportedly said in a Slack message. “We were told that leadership wants to take a pause to onboard the thousands of new hires we’ve recently made.” The company also told Protocol that it’s slowing hiring “to focus our budget on taking care of existing employees as inflation persists.

NVIDIA will be joining a number of tech companies, including Lyft, Uber and Snap, in announcing hiring slowdowns. Tech companies have been hit particularly hard by economic headwinds cause by COVID lockdowns in China and the war in Ukraine. NVIDIA, however, was expected to weather events due to continued strong demand in the GPU market that has kept prices high and supply short. 

ソニーＧ、部品不足改善でＰＳ５大幅増産　ＰＣやモバイル向けゲーム拡大

ソニー・インタラクティブエンタテインメントのジム・ライアン社長は２６日、供給網（サプライチェーン）の制約が緩和しつつあるとし、家庭用ゲーム機「プレイステーション５（ＰＳ５）」の生産を大幅に拡大する方針を示した。写真は、ＰＳ５のロゴ。２０２０年１１月１０日に都内で撮影。（２０２２年　ロイター／Issei…